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Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell VPLEX
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Storage Management (5th)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Management and Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell VPLEX is designed for Storage Management and holds a mindshare of 6.8%, down 8.1% compared to last year.
IBM Spectrum Virtualize, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 1.5% mindshare, up 1.5% since last year.
Storage Management
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Sayed Zuber - PeerSpot reviewer
It's an excellent solution for data mobility and disaster recovery, but the CLI can be difficult for beginners
Dell VPLEX currently requires Flash Player to access the GUI. It would be better to have a web-based HTML management interface. The encryption could also be improved. When the host writes data, it goes from VPLEX back to the physical storage. The physical storage device will do encryption or use an algorithm called Data Address Encryption. If there are vulnerabilities between the host and the storage device, you can lose your data. I suggest encrypting the data before it is sent from the host to the storage. I would also recommend using the NVM protocol in VPLEX. It still has Flash Player and a local SATA disk built into the Flash Player. You need to Flash the disk to SAS and then SATA. The NVM protocol is better.
MD.Faisal Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency
I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution works well. It's very reliable."
"The best feature of VPLEX storage is its ability to consolidate storage. It also provides the highest RPO and RTOs for replication technology. VPLEX enables application mobility."
"Storage virtualization and geographic resilience for Metro Sans, plus a great performance improvement."
"The capacity to migrate machines onto VPLEX is great — it's very clean. We can migrate machines and add arrays easily."
"Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract."
"The most valuable feature is deduplication, as we have no duplication in the snapshots."
"Mobility enables us to carry out an internal migration of data."
"Its mirroring capabilities allow for data to be mirrored across two different data centers, so if one center were to crash or fail, the other center could take over and keep everything running smoothly."
"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."
"The ease of management, the simplicity of the CLI, the speed of that interface, and the well-architected design of the product in general are valuable features."
"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."
"Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places."
"It lowers cost. It does so by getting more efficient use out of the technology behind it."
"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."
"One of the main features of Spectrum Virtualize is it virtualizes the servers from the storage. We have a very large infrastructure. A major advantage is when you get the aged storage arrays and you have to replace all of those."
"IBM offers excellent customer service."
 

Cons

"The price is a problem with EMC due to the fact that it's more expensive than the other vendors."
"The initial setup is complex."
"With Dell VPLEX, there are some bugs with Broadcom."
"Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure."
"There can be delays in getting performance reports."
"VPLEX's engine-based architecture is complex, so the implementation is challenging and takes more time. It's also difficult to fix hardware issues. When an appliance fails, it takes Dell EMC a long time to fix it because spare parts are in short supply."
"I would like to have site-to-site replication capability for applications."
"Today, it needs a huge effort that is not acceptable during disaster recovery."
"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."
"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."
"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."
"I would like to see them provide a unified platform that offers block, file, and object-based protocol access."
"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We struck a great deal with Dell EMC, so for us, VPLEX was not very expensive."
"VPLEX is a little bit expensive in my personal opinion."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."
"Generally the bundled licensing is more cost effective and gives flexibility to the solution. Linking into the Spectrum Suite can also be advantageous, but depends on the scale of the enterprise."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."
"We have struggled with Pure Storage, but people are understanding that much of Pure has been consumer grade SSDs. Therefore, when the customer is really understands what they are getting, they realize that IBM presents the same sort of value as existing vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell VPLEX?
Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract.
What needs improvement with Dell VPLEX?
Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure. Any EMX product, be it PowerMax, VMAX, or DMAX, works based on the CLI. A person has to be very good at runn...
What is your primary use case for Dell VPLEX?
We use Dell VPLEX for backend connectivity within the storage. We also use it when we want to manage redundancy for any storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM Spectrum Virtualize is not an expensive product. It offers flexibility with different flavors, whether appliance-based or as software. Its costs are competitive compared to other solutions like...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. This would provide a more appealing and cost-effective solution. Additionally, it...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
I primarily use IBM Spectrum Virtualize ( /products/ibm-spectrum-virtualize-reviews ) when I have different hardware from various vendors and I want them to act as a unified storage solution. It en...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kindred Healthcare, Regis Aged Care, WeBank SpA, Panduit, Munson Healthcare
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
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